A qualitative study on user guidance capabilities in product configuration tools

Software systems are nowadays often configured by sales people, domain experts, or even customers instead of engineers. Configuration tools communicate the systems' variability to these end users and provide guidance for selecting and customizing the available features. However, even if a confi...

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Main Authors: Rabiser, Rick, Grünbacher, Paul, Lehofer, Martin
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
cognitive dimensions of notations
Configuration tools
end user guidance
qualitative study
Software and its engineering > Software creation and management > Designing software
Software and its engineering > Software creation and management > Designing software > Requirements analysis
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Grünbacher, Paul
Lehofer, Martin
description Software systems are nowadays often configured by sales people, domain experts, or even customers instead of engineers. Configuration tools communicate the systems' variability to these end users and provide guidance for selecting and customizing the available features. However, even if a configuration tool creates technically correct systems, addressing the specific needs of business-oriented users remains challenging. We analyze existing configuration tools to identify key capabilities for guiding end users and discuss these capabilities using the cognitive dimensions of notations framework. We present an implementation of the capabilities in our configuration tool DOPLER CW. We performed a qualitative investigation on the usefulness of the tool's capabilities for user guidance in product configuration by involving nine business-oriented experts of two industry partners from the domain of industrial automation. We present key results and derive general implications for tool developers.
doi_str_mv 10.1145/2351676.2351693
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source IEEE Electronic Library (IEL) Conference Proceedings
subjects cognitive dimensions of notations
Configuration tools
end user guidance
qualitative study
Software and its engineering -- Software creation and management -- Designing software
Software and its engineering -- Software creation and management -- Designing software -- Requirements analysis
title A qualitative study on user guidance capabilities in product configuration tools
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